The House of Commons passed a unanimous resolution yester- day
week that a humble address be presented to her Majesty, praying her Majesty graciously to .grant a free pardon to Edmund Galley. The Edmund Galley here referred to was found guilty of the murder of a farmer near Moreton Hampstead, in Devonshire, at the Exeter Assizes in July, 1836, and was sentenced to death by Mr. Justice Williams. The other prisoner found guilty, and executed, bore witness to the innocence of Galley, who also endeavoured to prove an alibi, and some of our most eminent lawyers, especially Sir Montague Smith and the present Lord Chief Justice (Sir A. Cockburn) had at the time ex- pressed their strong belief of the strength of the evidence on which the alibi was founded. Galley was reprieved, and the evid- ence reviewed by Lord Denman, at the request of the Home Secretary, then Lord John Russell, but there seemed to be no reason perceived by either of them for questioning the justice of the verdict. And Mr. Cross objected very strongly to reopen the case as to the innocence of Galley, who is doing well in the colonies, and does not, apparently, wish to return to England. The Home Secretary would only agree to the resolution on condition that all the words implying a belief in Galley's innocence were left out,—and probably he was right ; for it is a bad precedent to review a trial held forty-three years ago, when almost all those concerned in it are dead. Nevertheless, we strongly suspect that there was, in this case, great miscarriage of justice,—for the few circumstances of which there can be no doubt, do tell very strongly against Galley's guilt, —and probably the evidence against him was evidence grounded on mistaken identity. Rarely has the House of Commons shown a stronger feeling on any subject ; indeed, it treated Mr. Cross, for once, with scant justice, and less than scant courtesy.
